Another season of primetime television buying is nearing it’s end. The TV upfronts are a stable of the television sales cycle that help keep the billions of dollars of ad spending flowing in consistently. The NewFronts, originally started by Digitas have now grown tremendously and have provided web video networks including Hulu, YouTube and Blip show off their new content. While the NewFronts continue to grow each year, their effectiveness in selling a non-linear slate of web content has always been in question. Blip, one of the largest web video networks participated in the NewFronts for the first time and also invested in traditional media to get the word out. We interviewed Blip CEO Kelly Day and President, Sales & Marketing, Jason Krebs about their big year. Read more

GetGlue, the social TV startup is speeding up their roadmap to monetization. They recently completed a big campaign with YouTube and have now announced a new EVP of Sales to take their paid partnerships to the next level. Shelby Huston Haro, the former head of enterprise sales at Flixster & Fandango has joined their team. Read more

In Late April Lost Remote hosted its first ever NYC event. The day begin with a fireside chat I led with our main keynote speaker, MTV President Stephen Friedman. Friedman captivated the room in a discussion that drove into the fascinating details of how MTV treats social. We’re excited to share the full transcript from the keynote that includes Friedman discussing the value of Instagram, Tumblr and trusting the young generations both within the company and the audience to guide where their brands thrive and tell stories. Read more

CBS announced it has acquired TV Guide Digital, buying up its remaining 50% share of the company from Lionsgate. The deal folds TVGuide.com and its mobile apps into CBS Interactive, which already runs TV.com and other entertainment brands like GameSpot and Last.fm. “It’s a brand that has a nice-size audience, and a highly monetizable category that has a lot of relevance going forward,” CBS Interactive President Jim Lanzone told the LA Times. “That’s why it fits so well with our strategy.”

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At Lost Remote we’re very lucky to interview big names like Mark Cuban, MTV President Stephen Friedman, Dan Rather and more. While big names like these (and the ones you might have seen at the Lost Remote NYC Show) have defined social TV, the future of TV lies in the hands of the yoots (the generation that was born into social) . Meet Melanie Witkower, a rising senior at Syracuse University who has embedded herself as a social TV expert within production arms while spending the semester “abroad” in Los Angeles.

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Trendrr has rolled out a new product called Curatorr that enables its clients to roll out real-time Twitter experiences on TV, mobile apps and other digital screens. Curatorr also joins Twitter’s “certified products” list, which includes services like Mass Relevance, Crimson Hexagon and Radian6. In fact, Curatorr is positioned to compete with Mass Relevance, which has been growing leaps and bounds as media companies and brands alike expand their real-time products.

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It’s accepted knowledge that digital is upending traditional media. But sometimes, that’s just not the case. In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do?, Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle tells how social TV has been a boon to his mag’s print sales:

“There is tremendous engagement around television… I will very often look at the social media surrounding of a particular show and make the [cover story] decision based on that,” Cagle explained, pointing toVampire Diaries as an example. “We thought there is so much social media going on around the show, and it went crazy.  Ian Somerhalder tweeted it out to his legion of followers, and that actually translated into print sales.”

Read the full interview in So What Do You Do, Jess Cagle, Managing Editor of Entertainment Weekly?

– Mona Zhang

Since launching in January 2012, Viggle has been making a splash as the go-to second screen app for brands and advertisers alike. We’ve recently written about Viggle’s partnership with the NBA for the 2013 NBA Playoffs and about their partnership for with Dan Marino for their MyGuy app activation surrounding the NFL Playoffs. Read more

For decades the television industry has dreamed about the Holy Grail of interactive advertising: commercials that enable viewers to pick up their remotes to get a coupon, book a test drive or enter a contest. While there have been many successful experiments so far, none of them has scaled. As we wrote two months ago, Twitter was poised to crack the code. And today, it looks like they did just that.

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Last weekend, Viacom’s MTV, VH1, CMT, Palladia and LOGO channels were down at the Hangout Music Festival leveraging social TV, traditional TV and an impressive multi-screen experience. The festival, on the gulf shores of Alabama has grown tremendously now in their 4th year. In addition to editorial coverage of the festival MTV, “wanted to evolve and extend our coverage model to extend to all screens, leaning heavily on social to help push out news coverage and VOD clips in real time, while also running a multi-camera live stream.” The hard work paid and MTV is sharing the results exclusively with Lost Remote. We also interviewed Dermot McCormack, head of Connected Content for Viacom Music & Logo Group about the big activation. Read more